Chapter 2: Rumours

Forest area. Ragol

About 10 minutes later Turin and Zinks finally showed up.

"You took your time" Sirtom said sarcastically to the two newcomers.

"Try telling us were you are next time!" Zinks replied sounding a little pissed off. Zinks was an android, he was very tall, even for an android, and he was black all over, apart from gold lines at the joints were his legs and arms were attached to his body.

Turin on the other hand, was a human, like Kidd and Sirtom. Turin was classed as a Force, a master in spell-usage. He wore a red robe, which came down to his ankles. He had long black hair as well, which was held up by a headband.

"Ok, ok, where's the- oh..." Turin saw the blood with a look of disgust on his face "...that's just sick"

After a bit of arguing, the four hunters decided that they should follow the trail.

"Wait" Kidd spoke up, while drawing his doublesaber and turning it on "we better get our weapons ready, you don't know what's up there". The others seemed to agree, because Sirtom drew his SR mechguns, Zinks pulled on his fighting gloves, which were called Gods hands, which someone made for him once Zinks got the materials for him. Turin pulled out some mechguns as well, most people thought this was strange for a force, but Turin just wanted to be careful, just in case he couldn't cast any techniques for any reason.

"Ok, lets go" Zinks said, and the four hunters went down the trail of blood, not knowing what they'll find. After a few minutes, Kidd saw something, and it wasn't good.

"What the hell?!" Kidd yelled, and you couldn't blame him.

"What is It this time-oh my God..." Everyone looked at what Kidd saw, and it scared the hell out of all of them.

It was defiantly human, or what remained of it anyway. The body had long, deep gashes in it, even though the human, who turned out to be male, was wearing a hunter's battle armour as well. The guy was so banged up none of the guys could see his face. After a long silence, Turin spoke up.

"Hey, his ID still seems to be in place." Turin pulled it out, but he couldn't see the name or symbol on the dead hunter's ID, mainly because it was battered up a bit, and had some dried up blood on it.

"Well, at least his ID is still ok" said Kidd, and took it from Turin and washed the blood off it in a nearby lake. When the Id was legible, Kidd read it our loud:

Name: Stratus

ID: Viridia

Class: Humar

Place of sign-up: Pioneer 1 hunter's guild

"...I think we found the guy we were looking for"

"What makes you say that?"

"Because this guy signed up on Pioneer 1"

"What? Lemmie see that!" Kidd handed the ID over to Zinks and then he saw it.

"Yup, this guy was from pioneer 1" Sirtom spoke for the first time in a few minutes

"Well, lets take this guy back up to pioneer 2 and..."

"We can't do that!"

"What?"

Turin didn't like that idea, and for good reason.

"What would you do if you saw 4 hunters carrying a half-mauled body around the place?!"

"I suppose your right...someone set up a telipipe."

Kidd set up the pipe, and they transported back up to Pioneer 2, leaving the body of Stratus behind.

Principles office. Pioneer 2.

"Wait, can you repeat that to me again?" The principal's voice asked.

The four hunters rolled their eyes, well, apart form Zinks, considering he didn't have any eyes. Sirtom decided to try and explain

"Ok, when we went down to Ragol, we saw a trail of blood that eventually lead to a body that looked like its been through a cheese grater, and the ID on the dead guy said that he came from Pioneer 1, so that's most likely the guy that you wanted us to find."

Principle Tyrell stood up with a look of deadly seriousness on his ageing face.

"Were is the body now?"

"Still on Ragol, we-"

"WHAT?" Tyrell suddenly looked panicky and anxious.

"If another hunter finds that body then rumours are going to spread! The last thing I need is people thinking that there might be people living on that planet! Everyone will be wanting to go down!"

"Err...Sir" Kidd spoke up after Tyrell went nuts. "People already want to live on that planet!"

Tyrell didn't say anything for a bit, and then dismissed them saying not to tell anyone about what happened

"Git." Zinks muttered when leaving the room.

Hunter's quarters. Pioneer 2.

Kidd was walking back to his apartment, thinking about what happened and what could have done that to Stratus, that he heard a voice behind him.

"Did you find a body on Ragol?" Kidd wheeled around and saw a Force wearing blue robes. He had brown hair, which was held up by a headband, like Turin's. He seemed to be about the same age as Kidd.

"Yeah...why, who are you?"

"My name is Wilm Break, my friends call me Break, you can call me whatever you want"